


Welcome to Storybrooke

by HMSLusitania



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, I fucked with their family tree, Minor Character Death, My First Work in This Fandom, Past Regina/Daniel, but frankly so has everyone else especially the writers so, drunk driving accidents, mentions of domestic violence, past Emma/Graham, past Emma/Neal, real world AU, serious infidelity, someone was pregnant as a teenager
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-15 11:42:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3445838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HMSLusitania/pseuds/HMSLusitania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Welcome to Storybrooke: Population - past regrets and future walks of shame.<br/>Eleven years ago, Emma Swan left Storybrooke in a maelstrom of bad choices and severed ties. Coincidence, fickle friend that she is, gave Emma the perfect opportunity to go slinking home, along with her eleven year old son. She would have enough problems just with her new job as the sheriff's deputy, since that was a job that required putting up with drunk pirates, a smuggling ring that liked to call themselves the Merry Men, and the general shenanigans that came from living in a small town. But her real problems lie a little deeper, down with the parents who cast her out and the sisters who let her go. But as Emma reintegrates to life in Storybrooke, she finds that the more things changed over the past decade, the more they've stayed exactly the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to Storybrooke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome home, while away they have tampered with the locks and your things they've rearranged.

“It’s just for a week,” Emma promised, even though she didn’t believe the words she was saying. Henry didn’t believe her either, of that she was sure. But it was a lie she could comfortably tell herself and one he would willingly accept. And then they would be in the town, the tiny town in Maine that was the bane of Emma’s existence, and a week would pass and then two and neither of them would mention Emma’s lie again.

The yellow bug passed the old wooden sign that welcomed them to Storybrooke, and then the library’s clock tower came into view on the horizon over the trees. As they twisted out of the woods and onto Main Street, Emma could almost see the past staring at her from the shop fronts. She could see herself aged thirteen going along with Belle’s scheme to sneak into the town archives at City Hall late at night, just to find out how old Mr Gold from the pawn shop was, exactly. She could see herself aged fifteen trying to discourage Ruby from running away with some boy – irony had come back to bite her in the ass for that one. She could see herself age seventeen making out with Neal in one of the alleyways. But no matter how long she stared, she could only see Belle and Ruby and Neal, not the people who really mattered at the end of the day.

“Mom, where are we staying?” Henry asked.

“The diner,” Emma said, parking the bug in front of Granny’s and climbing out of the car. She grabbed her bag out of the trunk and Henry followed suit. The minute the bell over the door rang, Emma deeply regretted every decision in her life that had led to that moment.

“With you in a second!” a familiar voice said. Emma braced for impact and then Ruby walked out of the kitchen. She did a double take when she saw Emma, and for a second, Emma expected her to comment. But she didn’t. “How can I help you?”

“We need a room,” Emma said, searching Ruby’s face for signs of recognition. The past eleven years had been kind to her, and Ruby could’ve passed for the girl in Emma’s senior yearbook.

“Sure,” Ruby said, grabbing a set of keys from behind the counter. “13, just up the stairs.”

Henry started for the stairs immediately, but Emma hung back.

“Ruby? It’s me, Emma,” she said.

“Yeah,” Ruby agreed. “I figured you didn’t need hostility from me, considering.”

Emma winced. “Then thanks,” she said.

Ruby didn’t say anything and Emma took the key, heading for their new room. It was one of the larger ones, and she was grateful for that. There were two double beds dressed in the antiquated floral patterns that dominated Granny’s inn. It was the popular choice of hotel rental for prom night. That thought made Emma wince while she stared at the back of her son’s head. It hadn’t been room 13. It had been room twenty-something. She remembered that much.

“Who was that downstairs?” Henry asked.

“Her name’s Ruby Lucas,” Emma said.

“Did you know her?” Henry asked.

“Yeah,” Emma replied. “She was one of my best friends.”

Henry stopped unpacking his bag and turned to stare at her. “ _That_ was one of your best friends?”

“What?” Emma asked, hanging up a few of her jackets in the closet.

“She acted like she didn’t know you,” Henry pointed out. “And if she was one of your best friends, then Aunt--”

“We’re not going to talk about them right now,” Emma said, freezing at the mention of her elder sisters, even if it was just by associative familial nomenclature.

“Mom,” Henry said, his eyes wide. They were Emma’s green eyes. Emma’s mother’s green eyes. Mary-Margaret’s green eyes. “When are we going to talk about them?”

“At the funeral,” Emma said, steeling herself.

Storybrooke wasn’t a bad place to grow up. At least, not if you stayed on the straight and narrow and were friends with other people on the straight and narrow and didn’t date half the boys in your grade and weren’t the sheriff’s daughter. It was an alright place to be a kid. It wasn’t such a good place to be a rebellious teenager, and it was definitely not a good place to be a rebellious and pregnant teenager. It was a monumental fuck up made worse by having perfect elder sisters.

Emma unzipped the garment bag holding her black dress and scooped up the funeral notice. Her parents’ deaths had come at a disturbing coincidence with the end of her most recent relationship. That had been a pleasant screaming match, a diamond ring thrown across a table, a hollow fist to the face. There were police, and there were locked doors, quickly packed bags, and flight down the fire escape. She didn’t really think Walsh was going to follow her back to Storybrooke since he wanted very little to do with her or her son, but she felt safer knowing that Storybrooke didn’t even turn up on Google unless you zoomed in as far as the maps feature would let you.

“Do you think they missed you?” Henry asked, struggling to do up his tie. Most of his nice suit was leftover from his school uniform back in New York, and even though he’d been going there since third grade, he still didn’t know how to tie his tie. Emma suspected he feigned ignorance so she would help him, and she didn’t really mind.

“Who?” she asked.

“Grandma and Grandpa,” Henry said.

Emma sighed. Henry had never met her parents, would never meet her parents. She didn’t know why she was so desperate to protect their memories, so determined not to tell Henry about the day she left Storybrooke, several months before his birth. The night they told her she was a disappointment, that they were ashamed of her, and that she was a disgrace to their family.

“I don’t know, kid,” she said.

This was another one of the lies she was comfortable telling and Henry was willing to believe. It was an easy negotiation, easier than the truth – no. Henry knew the answer. He was a bright, perceptive kid. Emma knew the truth and knew Henry was aware. But the time she didn’t have to say it aloud was nicer to both of them.

“What about Neal?” Henry asked. “Is he here?”

Emma started. She hadn’t even considered the possibility. Trade in one psycho ex for another, that would be her life trajectory.

“I have no idea,” Emma said, blinking away the horrible sudden thoughts of Neal or Neal’s father trying to steal Henry away from her. But, no. Neal had never wanted kids, and neither had Mr Gold as far as she knew, and if anyone she knew was going to try and steal Henry away from her it would be – but that wasn’t important.

“Mom?” Henry asked. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, forcing a smile and glancing at her phone. It was almost time for the service. “You ready to go?”

Henry nodded and even left his DS and comic books lying on the bedside table. Emma’s plan was to arrive at the service just in time to slip unnoticed into the back, pay her respects, and run before anyone saw her. It was going to be a full house, she knew that for sure. Leonard and Ingrid Swan had been huge in the Storybrooke scene. If the whole town didn’t show up for the service, Emma would eat her shoes.

There was no point in driving from Granny’s, and Henry didn’t protest as Emma led the way across the small downtown to the chapel. The nuns who lived on the outskirts of town maintained it, and true to her predictions, the entirety of Storybrooke’s modest population was pouring out the doors as she and Henry approached. Because it was Maine in August, it was overcast and dull outside. Emma overheard several people comment that the weather itself seemed to be lamenting the loss of the Swans.

What she really needed to do was take stock of the situation, figure out what the mood of the town was in a more concrete way than Ruby’s frigid welcome. She needed to get Henry enrolled in middle school, she needed to find a job, she needed to find an apartment that wasn’t Granny’s Diner, she needed to get her car tuned up and the oil changed, she needed to go to the bank and transfer the bulk of her money from the BoA to the Storybrooke Credit Union, she needed to meet with her parents’ lawyer to make certain they didn’t leave her anything, she needed to do a million and one things besides sit in the back of the chapel listening to the local priest lament her parents’ deaths. But she allowed Henry to pull her into a pew in the very back.

The décor of the funeral was something her mother would’ve hated. Everything was black and white. White calla lilies, black wreathes, polished black coffins. Ingrid hated black. Emma swallowed back the uncomfortable lump in her throat and forced herself to look at the front of the church. In the front row, on opposite sides of the aisle, were two heads of shiny black hair. Emma wondered if their separation meant they weren’t speaking to each other either.

The priest droned on, talking about the achievements the Swans had had during their lives, and the benefit they’d done to Storybrooke. He talked about their legacy, the tragedy of their untimely deaths – but he didn’t mention the irony of the sheriff bending his car around a tree while drunk, Emma noticed – and then he mentioned the sorrow that filled the hearts of the family they’d left behind. Emma waited with bated breath to hear the list of the nieces and nephews she had that she’d never met, but instead the priest listed her sister’s names and then…that was it.

“Mom, why didn’t he say you?” Henry whispered.

“Don’t worry about it,” Emma whispered back, giving a guilty smile to the man in the seat next to her. He frowned at her and then did the same double take Ruby had done at the diner. But he didn’t say anything, and Emma silently thanked him.

As soon as the service was over, Emma was out of her seat, tugging Henry out of the chapel before anyone else could notice her. She thought she heard a man say “Emma” but she didn’t turn to double check.

The wake wasn’t being held at Granny’s, an altogether abnormal circumstance, and Emma happily retreated to the room service Granny would provide. She knew Granny herself didn’t care for her parents and she hadn’t spotted the woman at the chapel, so she could only hope she wouldn’t protest bringing up a few plates of waffles and some hot chocolate.

“Were they there?” Henry asked, sucking some cinnamon sprinkled whipped cream off the top of his beverage.

“They were up front,” Emma said, cutting a piece off her waffles.

“Did they see you?” Henry asked.

“No,” Emma said. She didn’t even care if it was true. She had no desire to talk to her sisters and they had no desire to talk to her, so it really didn’t matter if they saw her.

Henry looked unconvinced, but bit into his waffles anyway. Emma flicked on the radio and ducked into the bathroom to change out of her dress. She was still in the bathroom taking her hair down when there was a knock on the room door. She heard bedsprings and Henry opening the door.

“Is your mother in, young man?” a man asked. Emma tried to place the voice but came up blank. Well, she was pretty sure it was the same man who’d said her name back at the chapel, but she didn’t recognise him.

“Who are you?” Henry asked. Emma scrubbed the remains of the lipstick she’d ruined on her hot chocolate off her mouth and ducked into the room. She couldn’t see the visitor because of the barely open door and was proud of Henry for keeping the chain done up. She figured that was what she got for raising a child whilst a bounty hunter in Manhattan.

“I’m afraid it’s official sheriff’s business,” the man on the other side of the door said.

“Sheriff’s business?” Emma demanded, rounding the door and staring at the man in the hallway. He was tall, blue eyed, with sandy blond hair. He leaned in the doorway with one hand against the top of the frame and the other on his hip, subtly adjusting his jacket to show the sheriff’s star clipped to his belt. Emma’s eyes widened. “David?”

The serious expression he’d been wearing disappeared as his face split into a grin. Emma shut the door and undid the chain before opening the door fully and wrapping him in a hug.

“I thought you left!” she said, letting go of him and allowing him into the room. Henry eyed him suspiciously. “Last I heard you were in Portland!”

“Yeah, well last I heard you were in Manhattan,” David replied. “Things change. And you must be Henry.”

“Who are you?” Henry asked, crossing his arms and eyeing David’s outstretched hand like it was covered in filth.

“Uh, David,” David replied. “David Nolan. I was friends with your mom a long time ago.”

“No, no,” Emma said. “Let’s call a spade a spade. You were hopelessly in love with my sister and--”

Emma started to say something about the scraggly awkward kid David had been in high school, sickly as a small child and held back to Emma’s year because of extended hospital stays, started to add how he’d pined something awful after Mary-Margaret who hadn’t even noticed him. But then she saw the shiny gold wedding band on his left hand and froze.

“And she agreed to marry you?” Emma finished, grabbing his hand and frowning at his ring in stunned shock. The David she knew would have never even considered marrying someone besides her middle sister.

“No,” David said. “But someone else did. And she wanted to move back home to Storybrooke, and so now here I am.”

“And you’re the sheriff?” Emma asked, nodding at the star on his belt. She could put aside her questions about his marriage for a while without being a bad friend. After all, she didn’t want to reopen his old wounds.

“It’s a recent promotion,” David replied. “How long are you in town?”

Emma and Henry exchanged looks. Henry nodded once and retreated to his bed and waffles and hot chocolate. It was an unspoken agreement that Emma could take back her lie from that morning, that Henry would understand.

“For a while,” Emma said.

“Good,” David said. “I think everyone would be happier if there was a Swan in the sheriff’s office again.”

“Are you offering me a job?” Emma asked.

“If you’ll accept it,” David said. “The Emma I used to know was fond enough of law enforcement.”

Emma narrowed her eyes at him and tipped her head in Henry’s direction. It didn’t really matter if David was referring to the several arrests she had under her belt for various things – drunk and disorderly, minor in possession, breaking and entering, theft – or Graham, but either way she didn’t want her impressionable eleven year old son getting the wrong idea about the sorts of things that were accepted here in Storybrooke.

“Yeah, fond,” Emma agreed, doing her best not to glare at one of her oldest friends, who was – as far as she knew – the only person in Storybrooke still speaking to her.

“Come on, you know I’m never going to get Mary-Margaret or Regina to take up the office,” David said.

“No,” Emma said. She discovered as he said their names that thinking about her sisters was one thing. Having someone else casually mention them was another thing entirely. “You won’t. Let me guess, Regina’s Governor of Maine.”

“Close,” David said. “Mayor of Storybrooke.”

Emma nodded. If she accepted his offer of a job in the sheriff’s office, there would be no way to avoid her. But maybe that would be a better way to meet again.

“So you need a deputy?” she asked.

“Yeah, I do,” David said. “Granted, I’m only the interim sheriff, but the elections aren’t for another three years so…”

“So you’ll be around for a while,” Emma finished.

She sighed and looked over at Henry. He quickly looked down at his comic book, pretending he hadn’t been watching their conversation.

“What do you say, kid? Can you handle having your mom be a cop?” Emma asked.

Henry shrugged one shoulder, the picture of nonchalance and innocence. Emma shook her head and turned back to David.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning?” she said. David grinned and showed himself to the door.

“Good,” he said. He paused with his hand on the knob. “And Emma? Welcome back.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Maine and Oregon both share the same major city - Portland. I'm told that people from the east coast always assume Portland is in reference to the city in Maine while those of us from the west always assume Portland Oregon. While this is understandable, it is damn confusing when you're trying to buy plane tickets home.


	2. First Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You say it's in the past, you drive straight ahead. You're thinking that I hate you now 'cause you still don't know what I never said.

Emma had spent a lot of time in the Storybrooke sheriff’s station. When she was small, it had always been because she was visiting her dad at work. As she got older, and started committing minor crimes, her presence had more to do with that. Then there was the time after she turned sixteen when she started showing up at the station when her dad was off, on the pretext of bringing him coffee for his night shifts. The only person there was his then-deputy, Graham, who’d been disturbed by the sheriff’s youngest daughter flirting with him. Well, at least, he’d been disturbed until he wasn’t, and then he’d let her fuck him in one of the cells. She had no idea what had become of him since then, and the station was empty.

Or, at least, she thought it was until she heard singing.

Emma followed her ears to the main office, took in the empty deputy’s desk, the perfectly organised but overflowing sheriff’s desk, and the pirate lying in one of the cells singing sea shanties. Emma took in the long leather coat he’d flung over the foot of the bed, the equally leather pants he was wearing, and the torn-open black shirt he had on. All this was coupled with dishevelled black hair, black stubble obscuring his jaw, black chest hair coming from the open shirt. She surprised herself by not immediately noticing he had a nice profile and instead focusing on his favourite colour. Ingrid would’ve hated him.

“You need a guitar,” she said, interrupting his song.

Her voice only gave him pause long enough for the corners of his mouth to turn up in a smile.

“Aye, lass, and the fingers to play one,” he said, holding up a hook where his left hand should be. Emma choked on her coffee and started apologising profusely. She hadn’t been able to see his hook from her vantage point after all, and she was so sorry to make assumptions, and she only stopped gushing explanations about how she needed to remove her foot from her mouth with a vice grip when he started laughing.

He sat up, still laughing, and opened his eyes. They were rimmed with red and slightly bloodshot and even without looking at the register on David’s desk, Emma understood that he was in for being drunk in public the night before.

“What’d you do with David?” he asked, grabbing the hook with his right hand and pulling it. Emma tried not to stare, but then stopped feeling like she had a terminal case of saying the wrong thing when his pulling on the hook revealed a fully in tact left hand.

“He’s not in yet,” Emma replied. It wasn’t like David to be late, and especially not on her first day. But she wasn’t going to worry about it just yet. Everything else was under control, after all. Henry was under strict instruction not to leave Granny’s, and had been given free licence to order food to be charged to their room. She was even seventy-five percent sure he was actually going to follow her directions.

“Ah,” the pirate said, reclining back on the bed.

“So you work on the Jolly Roger?” Emma asked.

“Aye,” he agreed.

Storybrooke’s main tourist attraction (for “main” read “only”) was an eighteenth century British naval ship. For staggering prices, visitors could dress up as pirates and sail the high seas, and for even larger prices, they could go on one of the period cruises and dress up in high Victorian or Revolutionary fashions and have a romantic night at sea. Costumes were required, and Emma and – she frowned, trying to remember which boyfriend she’d stowed away with. It wasn’t Jefferson, it wasn’t August, it definitely wasn’t Graham or Neal. It must have been David. Not that she and David had ever dated, but there was no one else it could’ve been. Either way, they’d stowed away on the Jolly Roger once and as punishment, the captain, one Liam Jones, had forced them to galley duty.

“Do you ever drop the pirate act?” Emma asked, setting her mostly empty coffee cup down on the desk and inspecting the machine in the corner. It was the same one that had stood in the office since she was a child.

“Never while I’m in costume, love,” he replied.

Emma rolled her eyes and set a new filter in the coffee machine. “What about the accent?”

“What? You want me to fake an American accent when I’m not wearing my pirate’s costume?” he asked.

Emma glanced over at him and saw he was now leaning against the bars of his cell, his hands through them. The left was still red from being tucked under his hook for however long it had been on.

“Any chance I could get one of those cups?” he asked, nodding at the coffee machine.

“I think that’s up to the sheriff,” Emma said.

“And you’re, what? His new secretary?” the British pirate asked.

“New deputy,” Emma corrected, smiling at him and waiting for the pot to stop burbling.

“My mistake,” he said. “Do you have a name, love?”

Of all the questions Emma had expected upon her return to Storybrooke, her name was not one of them. But she didn’t recognise him either, so maybe he was new.

“Emma,” she said. She picked up the log book on David’s desk – where was he, anyway? It was completely abnormal for him to be more than three minutes late to anything – and read that the pirate’s name was Killian Jones. “Are you related to Liam Jones?”

“He was my brother,” Killian replied.

“So you went to Storybrooke High?” Emma asked. She didn’t recognise or remember Killian Jones at all. She wasn’t sure she’d even been aware Liam Jones had a brother, for that matter. Granted, Liam was twelve years older than her and she’d only known him because of the incident aboard the Jolly Roger and from the fact of small towns.

“Aye, for the longest four years of my life,” Killian agreed.

Emma set down David’s log book and returned to the coffee pot. Given the shade of blue that composed Killian’s eyes and the rugged air he gave off – the sort of air that would’ve made Ingrid purse her lips in staunch disapproval and made Leonard grumble and throw him in jail – Emma couldn’t comprehend how she’d missed Killian when she was in high school.

“When did you graduate?” Emma asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee. She made the mistake of looking over at Killian as she did, and discovered his hangover had done nothing to dampen his ability to give her puppy dog eyes. That, or it had, and when he was completely sober he would be entirely irresistible. She huffed and poured him a cup of coffee before handing it through the bars.

“Thanks, love,” he said, taking his coffee and retreating to the bed. “Why do you care how long ago that was? You obviously didn’t go there.”

“Yeah I did,” Emma said, sitting down at her desk. She glanced at the clock and discovered David was a full fifteen minutes late.

“Not possible,” Killian said. “I would’ve remembered you.”

“And I would’ve remembered you, so when did you graduate?” Emma replied.

“Seventeen years ago?” Killian offered, scratching the back of his head like he was trying to remember.

“Ah,” Emma said, now understanding. She didn’t remember Killian because he’d been graduated for a year before she even started high school. “You’re the same age as my sister.”

“I am?” Killian asked. “Maybe I remember her.”

“You do,” Emma said, stirring a spoonful of sugar into her coffee. As she did, she briefly considered what Henry must have ordered for breakfast and allowed herself to shudder at the thought of the mountain of bacon and waffles he must have coaxed out of Granny, along with a giant mug of hot chocolate. If she was incredibly lucky – usually not the case – then maybe Granny would even refuse to serve him the coffee he was so desperate to wheedle out of her at every opportunity.

“You sound so sure,” Killian replied.

“Well, she’s the mayor,” Emma said.

Her statement left Killian in stunned silence and Emma took a sip of her coffee. Killian hadn’t managed to shake off the shock before David skidded into the office with the most guilty expression Emma had ever seen him wear.

“I am so sorry I’m late,” he said, kissing her on the forehead the same way he’d always done when they were in high school. The familiarity was at once jarring and comforting. “I see you’ve met Captain Jones.”

“Emma Swan?” Killian asked, staring at her like he hadn’t heard David’s comment, or even noticed his entrance.

“She gave you coffee but didn’t let you out?” David asked, pouring himself a cup and fishing the cell keys out of his desk.

“I figured that was up to you,” Emma said, watching while David unlocked Killian’s cell. The pirate grabbed his coat and hook and finished the last of his coffee.

“It was very nice to meet you, Emma Swan,” Killian said, setting his empty mug on her desk. Emma smiled shallowly in response and watched him go, decidedly not looking at the way his leather pants clung to his legs.

“Just drunk and disorderly?” Emma asked once Killian was gone.

“And being a public disturbance,” David added, sitting at his desk. “You know, whenever there’s a soccer game on at the Rabbit Hole, or every August twenty-ninth, or…”

Emma nodded in understanding and glanced at the calendar. It was August thirtieth. She only had a few days to enrol Henry fully in middle school, but she could go tomorrow morning.

“What’s August twenty-ninth?” she asked.

David shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Whatever it was happened before Kathryn and I came back.”

“Kathryn?” Emma repeated. She felt her face fall slack and her eyebrows creep up her forehead. “You married Kathryn Griffith?”

David shrugged and looked away from Emma’s wide-eyed shock. Kathryn Griffith had been in their grade at school for all twelve years of forced public schooling. At least, she’d been in Emma’s grade since kindergarten. David hadn’t met her until first grade, which he liked to joke was the best three years of his life. The only joke in it was the comment on first grade’s quality, since David had been horribly sick the first two times he’d tried first grade. As selfish and awful as it was, Emma was glad David had ended up not progressing until she caught up to him.

“This is the Kathryn Griffith who called you Sheep Boy until sixth grade?” Emma asked, hoping somehow she’d got the wrong end of it and David hadn’t actually married Kathryn Griffith.

“That’s the one,” David agreed, staring at his coffee instead of meeting Emma’s eye.

“Out of curiosity, did she ask you out before or after you got blasted with vita rays?” Emma asked.

As she expected, this made David look up, a frown marring his forehead. “Since when do you know anything about Captain America?”

“I have an eleven year old son,” Emma reminded him, staring at him and waiting for him to answer.

“After,” David mumbled, returning his gaze to his coffee cup.

Emma wanted to read him the riot act, to get on his case about how in God’s name he’d come to the conclusion Kathryn Griffith was an acceptable person to date – let alone _marry_ – but she had no room to talk. The closest thing she could claim to a soapbox was a shallow hole in the ground. After all, she’d abandoned David twelve years ago that month. She couldn’t claim to be a concerned best friend when she’d left him to his fate alone. She hadn’t even done so much as Facebook stalk the people from Storybrooke. She’d rationalised it that no one in Storybrooke had presumably heard of Facebook, but unlike her negotiated lies with Henry, she couldn’t even pretend to believe that one.

Her first day as a deputy provided little to no excitement. The biggest thing she had to deal with was a few speeding tickets, all given to tourists heading for the docks, and then she was heading back to the diner. People stared at her as she walked in, but aside from muted whispering to each other, no one said anything. She sat down at the counter next to Henry and peered over his shoulder at the comic he was reading.

“What’d you get this time?” she asked. For reasons she didn’t completely understand, Henry spent his entire allowance on comic books every Wednesday.

“Guardians of the Galaxy,” Henry replied, showing her a panel that seemed to be of a racoon firing a machine gun. Emma nodded and ordered a cup of hot chocolate from Ruby. The fact David had welcomed Emma back with open arms seemed to be enough for Ruby, because she’d stopped pretending Emma was a passing acquaintance. She even added cinnamon to Emma and Henry’s hot chocolate without a reminder.

“What’d you do today?” Emma asked.

“I gave him the housing section of the paper,” Ruby supplied, nodding at the small fold of newsprint underneath Henry’s comic book. “Helped him pick through it for reasonable ones. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Thank you,” Emma said, smiling quickly at Ruby.

“And Granny gave me this,” Henry added, sliding Emma a picture. From the holes in the corners, Emma surmised it was one of the pictures that usually hung on the cork board in the back of the diner. Everyone who wanted to could add their pictures to the board, and Emma vaguely remembered giving Granny the picture her son was offering.

In it, she was wearing a terrible bridesmaid’s dress in a garish shade of red and a huge smile. Her shoes were obscured by the voluminous hem of Regina’s sparkly white dress, which extended so far it blocked most of Mary-Margaret’s legs on the other side. Mary-Margaret had been talked into the same awful red dress, although it looked better on her than it did on Emma. She was pretty sure it was the last time any of the three of them had smiled that much. In the background of the picture, Ingrid and Leonard were wearing patiently amused looks while the three girls squeezed each other for the camera.

Emma flipped the picture over and discovered her own penmanship declaring the picture’s occupants as Emma Swan, Regina Mills, and Mary-Margaret Swan. It didn’t matter how many times Regina insisted she wasn’t changing her last name, Emma had still written down the new one. The date on the back beside their names made her wince. It was a month before her seventeenth birthday. Ten months after the picture was taken, Emma was pregnant. Thirteen months after the picture, Regina wasn’t speaking to her and Mary-Margaret was ineffectually trying to keep the peace.

“Mom?” Henry asked, jolting her out of her thoughts.

“What?” Emma asked, turning the picture back over.

“You okay?” Henry asked.

“Yeah, of course,” Emma said, handing him the picture. “That’s yours. I’m pretty sure Granny gave it to you, not me.”

“Yeah but it’s of you,” Henry pointed out. “And Aunt Regina and Mary-Margaret.”

“I know,” Emma said. Henry looked like he was about to ask questions, try to get details from her about what exactly had gone so wrong between the taking of that picture and the present day. As an immediate distraction, Emma tapped on Henry’s comic book. “So, tell me about these Guardians of the Galaxy.”

As Henry launched into an explanation about something to do with a genetically modified racoon, a talking tree, a talking dog with telekinesis, and two green bug people, one of whom was actually named Bug, Emma stole another look at the picture. She and Regina looked the most different, but that was because Emma looked exactly like Ingrid and Regina looked exactly like Leonard. Mary-Margaret had done the civilised genetics mediating, ending up with Ingrid’s green eyes and Leonard’s black hair. But that was Mary-Margaret to a T. Always playing the intermediary, the councillor, the voice of reason. Even right down to being the genetic middle ground between her older and younger sisters. With an unexpected pang, Emma realised she missed them. Or, more accurately, she missed the smiling and laughing girls in the picture. She missed the smiling, carefree, sixteen year old version of herself, the positively luminous twenty-two year old Regina, the untroubled, happy nineteen year old Mary-Margaret.

Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do to get them back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: (or really fucked up depending on your stance on the sanctity of graveyards) in the middle ages in western Europe, people used graveyards as standard congregating places. They held markets and judicial trials, and gambled, and danced, and occasionally fornicated. I'm sorry to share this information with you, but I couldn't keep it to myself without it eroding my soul.


	3. Apple Pie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You’re not the person that I knew back then. It’s all too late to set things straight because everything has been.

Word of Emma’s return spread like a wildfire – it started with a single spark and by three in the afternoon the next day, everyone in town knew. They knew she was working as a deputy, they knew she was staying at Granny’s, they knew she’d brought her son, and they knew said son looked remarkably like his father. Emma had done her own fair share of sleuthing and knew Neal was not in Storybrooke (thank God) and the rest of the gossip she got from Ruby on Monday morning. Henry had to start school the next day, which he was not thrilled about, and she’d allowed him to have waffles for breakfast three days in a row to compensate. Middle school sucked and going to the first year of said standardized torture in a new state where you didn’t know anyone had to be worse.

“At least I don’t have to wear a uniform anymore,” he said, ever the optimist. Emma nodded and ruffled his hair.

“You coming to the station with me this morning?” she asked.

“Ruby offered to take me to see the Jolly Roger,” Henry said, smiling across the counter at Ruby. Emma raised her eyebrows and Ruby shrugged.

“What can I say? The kid’s a charmer,” she said.

“Alright,” Emma said. “But there’s going to be wind down at the docks, so go grab your jacket.”

Henry groaned like the world was on his shoulders and slumped towards the stairs. Emma shook her head fondly and turned back to Ruby.

“So what about Elsa?” she asked.

“She’s working for NOAA or something,” Ruby said. “I don’t know the full story, except that she’s up in the North Pole – seriously – studying glaciers.”

Emma let her wide eyes express her concern for one of her other good friends from high school.

“Right?” Ruby said. “And her little sister, you remember Anna right? Anyway, she married that boy she was always hanging out with, Kris. Uh…let’s see…oh right.”

“Oh right what?” Emma asked.

Ruby’s eyes twinkled with mischief, the expression of the ultimate gossip morsel. She beckoned Emma closer across the counter.

“Belle?” Ruby said. Emma nodded. “She up and _married_ Mr Gold.”

Emma choked on her hot chocolate and spluttered the hot liquid over the counter. “ _What_?”

“Yeah,” Ruby agreed. “And, like, we all thought it was for money--”

“It’s Belle,” Emma interrupted. Something would’ve had to go critically wrong since she left Storybrooke for Belle to be interested in money.

“Yeah, but we couldn’t think of a better explanation, so we kept waiting for the funeral notice, right? Nope,” Ruby said. “There’s spawn.”

“Spawn?” Emma asked, her face frozen in a mask of something that fell between shock and repulsion. She might have seriously dated Mr Gold’s son, might be the mother of Mr Gold’s only grandchild, but…

“Jacques and Maurice,” Ruby said.

“Oh my God multiple children?” Emma asked. Ruby nodded, and from the curl of her lips and the wrinkle in her brow, Emma understood that she had similar feelings about Belle’s married life.

“Are you ready to go?” Henry asked, appearing back at the counter with his raincoat.

“Yeah, I’ve just got to do one more coffee round, okay, kid?” Ruby said. “Emma, one for the road?”

“No, I’ve got to get to work,” she said. She kissed Henry on the cheek. “I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Bye Mom,” Henry said, hugging her tightly.

Emma enjoyed the walk to the sheriff’s station. She didn’t have to pass Mr Gold’s shop – or think about the fact Belle was married to him, or the fact Belle, who was her age, was her son’s step-grandmother – and the few other people on the commute weren’t paying any attention to her. Emma was bad at being anonymous in Storybrooke. She didn’t realise it was something she liked until she came back. In New York, she could see the same people every day and the only people who would routinely acknowledge her existence were the people at the coffee cart and the magazine stand on 1st Avenue where she got her morning sustenance. The past few days in Storybrooke had been so full of getting the foundations of her life together that she’d been forced to be around people who recognised her, and who asked questions.

She stepped into the sheriff’s station, said hi to their front desk lady, an exiled nun named Astrid who’d taken the job there after breaking her vows, and headed into the main office. She stopped dead when she discovered both cells had occupants and a third man handcuffed to her desk.

“Morning, Swan,” Killian Jones said from one of the cells. Emma barely recognised him out of his pirate’s costume. His jeans were a far cry from the leather pants she’d last seen him in, although they fit just as well, and the dark blue shirt he had on under a reasonable length leather jacket brought out the stunning colour of his eyes. That in turn made Emma’s stomach constrict with unnecessary force, but she brushed the feeling aside because the last thing she needed right then was a crush on an oft-arrested Brit.

“Swan?” the man handcuffed to Emma’s desk asked, his rising eyebrows deepening the wrinkles on his forehead. If Emma had to guess, he wasn’t much older than Killian, and was probably from the same part of England. Unlike his darker companion, the man at her desk had brown hair and looked like he spent more of his spare time living in the woods than he did dressing up as a pirate.

“Aye, she’s the mayor’s baby sister,” Killian explained, leaning on the central bar of his cell’s walls. “Any chance of coffee, love?”

“What did you do this time?” Emma asked, eyeing the three men suspiciously. The third was in the cell next to Killian’s, clearly at least ten years younger than the other two, and was wearing handcuffs inside his incarceration. Emma took it as a scale of how much David trusted the three – the man at the desk he trusted most, Killian second, the kid the least.

At her question, they all started talking at once and Emma couldn’t decipher their explanations through their accents.

“Let me guess, there was a soccer game,” she said, switching on the coffee maker.

“Football!” the men chorused in indignant unison. Emma nodded and poured herself a cup of coffee, ignoring Killian’s puppy dog eyes. A glance at the clock showed it was fifteen minutes past when David should’ve been there. She frowned.

“And David threw you three in here because?” Emma prompted.

“It was the only place we could carry on without disturbing the peace,” the man at the desk explained.

“Are you two crewmembers on the Jolly Roger as well?” Emma asked, taking a seat at David’s desk. She’d give him another five minutes before she called and asked after his wellbeing.

The prisoners nodded and introduced themselves as Will Scarlett – double locked up – and Robin Locksley, mostly free. Emma didn’t know either of them, but she got the sense it wasn’t for the same reason she didn’t remember Killian. They must have moved to Storybrooke after she left.

At nineteen minutes late, David ran through the door, face flushed like he’d been running. He gave Emma an apologetic smile and grabbed a cup of coffee.

“Most to least likely to pick the locks and run away?” Emma guessed, nodding at the three men.

“Most to least likely to run away,” David agreed. “They all picked the handcuff locks already.”

“I did not,” Killian protested while Robin and Will looked guilty and removed the handcuffs from their wrists.

“That’s because I didn’t cuff you,” David reminded him, fishing the cell keys out of his desk. “And so you all know, one more strike and you’re all on community service, so make it count at least.”

“Make it count? That’s your suggestion? Not ‘don’t do it’?” Emma asked.

“Love, I’ve been in here twice in the five days you’ve been in town,” Killian pointed out, helping himself to a cup of coffee. Emma accepted the fact she’d probably see Killian Jones in her cell again in the near future, and wondered instead why he was so familiar with their coffee machine. As the three took their leave – Killian absconding with one of their mugs – Emma turned to David.

“Shouldn’t they be doing community service already?” she asked, returning to her own desk now that Robin wasn’t attached to it.

“We’re friends,” David explained. “I got in the habit of locking them up before they could do real damage just to keep them out of trouble.”

“Which is why Killian’s fine with stealing our mugs,” Emma said.

“He’ll bring it back,” David assured her. “And I’m sorry I was so late.”

“It’s fine,” Emma said, although her curiosity was piqued. “It’s a bit refreshing after the panic attacks you’d have in middle school if you were less than thirty seconds early to every class.”

David looked sheepish and directed the conversation towards Henry, which eventually led to a discussion of just how screwed up it was that Belle was married to Mr Gold, which led to conjecture on where Neal was – David suggested the west coast, but then again he and Neal had never been close – and before Emma knew it, it was lunch time. She was about to offer to run over to Granny’s to get them both takeout, but a gentle knock on the door stopped her.

She’d never liked Kathryn Griffith – or Nolan now, she supposed – because Kathryn had been mean to her best friends. It had been unilateral, equal opportunity unpleasantness, not just to David. She’d given the same treatment to Ruby and Belle and Elsa and Emma couldn’t imagine what had prompted Kathryn to request she and David move back to Storybrooke. She could understand where she’d got the idea to ask David out, since somewhere between graduation and the present, David had grown half a foot and bulked up into a regulation heart-breaker whilst maintaining his wholesome boy-next-door air. What she didn’t understand was how David had been convinced to marry Kathryn.

“Hi honey,” Kathryn said, giving David a saccharine smile and pecking him on the lips. She set a brown paper bag down on the desk. “You left so early this morning you forgot your lunch.”

Emma carefully didn’t look surprised at the missing time between David’s departure from his house and arrival at the station. Instead, she looked at the confused expression on his face.

“You’ve never made me lunch,” he said, glancing at the paper bag like he expected it to start spewing spiders and venomous snakes.

“Don’t be silly,” Kathryn said, turning away from her husband with the same practiced dismissal Emma had seen her use a hundred times in school. “Emma Swan. What on earth brought you back to Storybrooke?”

“I thought it was time to come home,” Emma said, mimicking Kathryn’s false smile. She was certain she was the reason Kathryn had come to the station. “Manhattan’s not really the best place to raise a teenager.”

“Hmm,” Kathryn said, the difference between the sharp look in her eyes and the gentle smile on her lips growing more pronounced. “Maybe now that you’re here you can take the home-wrecker title back from Regina.”

“Okay, thanks for lunch, honey, we’ve got some important work to do, rounds and all,” David said, grabbing his lunch and jacket and edging past his wife like the last thing he wanted to do was touch her. Emma stood as well and didn’t bother to smile at Kathryn in any form – false or otherwise.

“Did she call Regina a home-wrecker?” Emma asked while they climbed into the cab of David’s truck.

David didn’t reply until after he’d started the engine, backed out of the parking lot, and headed for the borders of Storybrooke. It served a dual purpose of being isolated and the best place to catch speeders.

“She did, I’m sorry,” David said.

“Is Regina a home-wrecker?” Emma asked, investigating the contents of the paper bag Kathryn had brought. There was a single milk carton of goldfish crackers and an apple, which further proved her right about Kathryn’s reasons for visiting the station.

“No,” David said. There was a fierce vehemence in his voice that made it sound like this had come up in conversation before.

Emma nodded because Regina was a lot of things, but she didn’t think home-wrecker was really one of them. Of course, she wasn’t a home-wrecker either, whatever Kathryn might think. She’d never stolen someone’s boyfriend, even by accident.

“Who buys goldfish like this?” she asked, picking out the child-sized carton. Once it was in her hand, she remembered. _She_ had bought goldfish like that, when Henry was small and hadn’t understood what portion control was. Nowadays, he understood, but he just didn’t care. “Oh God, do you have children?”

“What? No,” David said, pulling the truck to the side of the road and looking disturbed. He took the tiny carton of goldfish from her and popped it open with practiced ease. “No, I volunteer with most of the summer programmes for the kids in town, and snacks accumulate. You’ve got to know how that is.”

“He’s eleven,” Emma said. “If you’ve got anything in your pantry you don’t need, I can drop Henry there around four o’clock and your shelves will be empty by four thirty.”

David cracked a smile, the first since Kathryn turned up at the door. They sat in silence by the side of the road, David with his goldfish, Emma with her apple. The silence allowed Emma to replay the scene in the sheriff’s office in her head. She could remember now David’s eyes widening when Kathryn pecked him on the lips, like it wasn’t a common occurrence. She could remember Kathryn holding the back of his chair instead of his arm when she leaned down to plant the abnormal kiss. Then there was the fact David couldn’t wait to get away from her, and Kathryn’s assessment that he’d left the house early even though he showed up for work almost twenty minutes late.

“Are you going to ask?” David asked finally. Emma looked over at him and saw a determined set to his jaw, even though he was staring at the multi-coloured goldfish in his hand.

“Would you tell me if I did?” Emma replied. “And remember, I know when people are lying.”

David sighed, and they lapsed back into silence. It lasted until Emma’s phone buzzed. The screen showed her a picture of Henry blowing out the eleven candles on his last birthday cake in February.

“What’s up?” she asked, pressing the phone to her ear.

“Mom! Ruby and I found the perfect apartment! You’ve got to come see!” Henry insisted.

“I’m at work, kid,” Emma said. “Is it still going to be there tonight?”

“Yeah, but the landlady’s going out of town at four and she won’t be back until next Monday and--”

“Okay, slow down, what’s the address?” Emma asked. Henry relayed it and Emma scribbled it down on the corner of David’s lunch bag. “Okay, we’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Henry exclaimed enthusiastically and hung up before Emma could ask for more details. She turned to David apologetically, but he had a knowing smile on.

“Where to?” he asked. Emma gave him the address and he nodded, starting the truck and pointing them back towards town.

The building they arrived at wasn’t one Emma was familiar with, but it looked old. The exterior was standard beige clapboard, but the interior stairwell was green and wallpapered like it was an extension of Granny’s. Emma had to hand it to Henry and Ruby. It was equidistant from the grocery store, the sheriff’s station, and Granny’s. The only thing a little farther away was Henry’s school.

She found Henry and Ruby chatting with a hunkered over old woman on the second floor. The old woman – Ethel, as David greeted her – gave Emma a once over and then showed them into the apartment. There was a lower floor composed of a living room, dining room, and kitchen, finished off with two closed doors that Ethel demonstrated were a bedroom and a bathroom. The piece that Emma was sure made it Henry’s favourite was a ship’s stair heading to a loft bedroom.

“And it’s already furnished, and the rent’s way better than what we paid in New York, and--” Henry started.

“You paid rent?” David asked, giving Henry an impressed look. “Wow, Emma, you didn’t tell me the child labour laws were so relaxed in New York.”

“Big breadwinner this one,” Emma said, ruffling Henry’s hair. He stared up at her with pleading eyes and Emma smiled. “Why don’t you and Ruby go back to the diner and pack up our stuff?”

“Okay!” Henry exclaimed, grabbing Ruby by the hand and pulling her out of the apartment. Ruby called a goodbye over her shoulder while Emma started the negotiations with Ethel. To her surprise, David jumped into the conversation, charm on full blast. A few compliments and crinkly eyed smiles later, Ethel was blushing like she wasn’t an octogenarian and holding her hand to her heart. She pinched David’s cheek affectionately and handed Emma a lease to sign without a care in the world. And then Ethel was handing Emma the keys to her new apartment and floating out the door to get ready for her imminent trip to Boston.

“What was that?” Emma asked, realising as she added her keys to her keychain that she hadn’t even tested the faucets. She did so then while she waited for David to explain himself.

“Ethel can get a little crotchety if you don’t handle her properly,” David said. “And the pipes are fine. I’m friends with someone who lives in the building, and everything works perfectly.”

“Thanks,” Emma said. “I just haven’t seen you charm someone that much since—”

Since Leonard caught him in the house at three in the morning, assumed he was there to deflower one of his precious daughters, and pointed a gun at him.

“The night your dad almost shot me?” David said. Emma nodded. “Being charming has its uses.”

“Apparently,” Emma said. “Hey, if you want to forward the night calls to my phone tonight, you can. We should take turns anyway.”

“Subtle way of asking for the afternoon off so you can unpack?” David asked.

Emma nodded and David faked a put upon sigh.

“Yeah sure,” he said. “Enjoy your new apartment, and I’ll see you tomorrow after you drop Henry off at school.”

“Are you going to be on time?” Emma asked.

“Tomorrow’s Tuesday?” David replied. Emma nodded. “Then yes.”

He started to leave, but Emma caught his elbow. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 _Whatever_ it _was,_ she thought.

“I’ll let you know,” was David’s response.

OOooOOooOOooOO

The first day of school was always the best. All of her kids were too excited to be mean to each other, even though most of them had known each other for years. Plus, they were all transitioning from elementary school to middle school, so they had to deal with changing classes for the first time on a regular basis, and it would be at least a week before they started asking why she, a social studies teacher, had a class pet. Yes, Mary-Margaret always preferred the first day of school, even if every year was another reminder of the fact she was creeping steadily away from thirty and was still single.

This year promised to be a bigger challenge than the previous ones, though. She hadn’t spoken to Regina since the funeral, and she hadn’t even seen Emma since she’d been back in town. When David turned up out of breath at three in the morning after the funeral to let her know Emma was back in town, Mary-Margaret was sure her heart stopped. Part of her hoped that Emma would find her, seek her out first. At least then she would know Emma wasn’t still mad at her. But as the days passed, she became fully aware that the problem was less that Emma was mad at her – not like she was mad at Regina, or like Regina was mad at Emma – it had more to do with Emma’s tendency to isolate when she felt uncomfortable.

She was jolted out of her thoughts of her sisters by the classroom door opening and a small gaggle of students spilling in. One little boy ran forward and placed an apple on her desk, and Mary-Margaret beamed at him in thanks. The boy smiled back and sat down, drumming his fingers on his desk with nervous energy.

“Thanks for the apple,” Mary-Margaret said, arranging it neatly on her desk.

“My mom went to the grocery store last night and got a whole bushel,” he explained.

“A whole bushel?” Mary-Margaret asked. She knew the kid was exaggerating, but his mother must have purchased quite a few apples for him to think it was a reasonable exaggeration. That, or he had no idea how many apples were in a bushel.

“Well, no, but she bought three bags of them,” the kid corrected. “I think she’s going to make pie.”

He smiled at the thought and kept drumming his fingers on his desk. Mary-Margaret hadn’t seen someone fidget quite that much since Emma was eleven.

“Alright everyone,” she said, smiling at her students and standing up once they were all seated. “Don’t get too comfortable yet, because we’re going to be switching seats. Everybody up!”

They stood, picking up backpacks and standing awkwardly next to their desks. Mary-Margaret pointed at the first desk and instructed the lucky child at the end of the class alphabet to take a seat. The nice thing about Storybrooke was there were always small classes. At the head of the second row, after she seated Jason Tierney, she pointed at the first desk. It was occupied by the boy who’d given her the apple.

“And here, we’ve got Henry Sw--”

She stumbled over the name, but the boy who’d given her the apple calmly sat back down at his chosen desk. His mother had bought a bushel of apples. Mary-Margaret searched the boy’s face and noticed he had her eyes. Emma’s son was in her class.

She shook herself and cleared her throat before seating the rest of the children. She only had two hours with them. Just two hours with her nephew. She actually got to meet her nephew, free from any interference. Regina would be livid when she found out, but Mary-Margaret couldn’t find space to care just then.

It seemed like the two hours passed in a blur, and then all the kids were running out of class and heading to their math or science classes. Mary-Margaret felt a pang of loss as Henry ran out the door, but didn’t let it show on her face while her second of three classes ran into the classroom. She was perfectly content to teach them until lunch, but as soon as they were gone, leaving their things behind, she dropped to her desk and picked up the framed picture sitting there. She, Emma, and Regina were piled onto a couch at their parents’ house, their faces covered in chocolate birthday cake.

She set the picture back in its place and pulled her lunch out of her desk drawer. The apple Henry had given her shone in the noon sunlight and she dusted it off before taking a bite. She wondered if it was wishful thinking on his part, or if Emma had really taken up baking pies. When they were growing up, Regina had been able to bake precisely one thing – apple turnovers. Emma had managed something that resembled chocolate chip cookies, as long as Mary-Margaret intervened once they were in the oven. She was the one who actually knew how to bake.

She took another bite of her apple and then the door creaked open. She stopped chewing and swallowed quickly.

“Who is it?” she asked, expecting the principal or the omnipresent Dr Whale, who really had no business ever being in the school.

“Ms Swan?” Henry asked, poking his head around the door.

“Come in!” she said, setting the apple down. Henry walked in and hovered awkwardly next to her desk. “Shouldn’t you be at lunch with the other students?”

“I was wondering if I could eat in here with you,” Henry said, holding up his sack lunch.

Mary-Margaret smiled. “I’d like that,” she said.

Henry beamed and dragged his class desk forwards so it bumped against hers before he tucked one foot under himself and set out something that looked like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich – no crusts – an apple, and a small carton of goldfish. He pulled his sandwich out and took a bite, and Mary-Margaret realised she was staring.

“Is your mom really baking pies?” she asked.

Henry shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “She just kept putting apples in the shopping cart last night. David said she was going crazy, but I don’t know.”

“David went grocery shopping with you?” Mary-Margaret asked. She couldn’t imagine Kathryn letting him do anything more than work with Emma.

“No, he turned up this morning with a giant box of stuff,” Henry explained, tapping his goldfish carton.

“That sounds like David,” Mary-Margaret agreed. He was an incredibly helpful person to have around when she was organising summer activities. Besides, he was a way better flag football coach than she was, even if they were both hopeless at soccer and had to get Robin to do it. They were evenly matched at archery and fencing, though. But David was king of getting snacks.

Henry chewed his sandwich for a minute. “So you’re really my aunt?”

“I really am,” Mary-Margaret agreed.

“Why’d you stop talking to my mom?” Henry asked, tearing his attention away from his sandwich to fix her with an intensely questioning stare.

Mary-Margaret recoiled. “It wasn’t like that,” she said. “It was much more complicated than that.”

She wasn’t lying, but she also wasn’t about to tell him the short answer – _because I’m a terrible person._

“Well I think she misses you,” Henry said. “And I think since you’re my teacher you should come over for dinner.”

“Henry--” Mary-Margaret started to protest.

“Here,” he interrupted, handing her a piece of paper. In an eleven-year-old’s handwriting it listed her address. Mary-Margaret frowned and then realised it said 4, not 3. “My mom gets off work at five.”

“I--” Mary-Margaret tried to protest. Henry ignored any argument she intended to make, gathered the dregs of his lunch, and bounded from the room.

Mary-Margaret stared at the address on the piece of paper and then pulled her cell out of her purse. No missed calls, no texts, just a blank background that was the constant reminder of her complete lack of social life.

She unlocked the phone and pulled up her recent calls. Half were to Granny’s Diner, a quarter were to the pizza place, and the rest were to David. She clicked on his name and held the phone to her ear while it rang.

“Sheriff Nolan,” he said. It was unfair, really. It was ridiculously, absurdly unfair that his voice made her heart skip beats even over the static that accompanied all calls in the poor reception area that encompassed all of Storybrooke.

“You know where Emma lives,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed. He only kept his answers short when there were people nearby. She wondered if those people were currently Emma.

“You probably helped her move,” she continued.

“Sort of,” he admitted.

“You definitely dealt with Ethel for her,” Mary-Margaret said. She was fond of her landlady, and Ethel was fond of her, but Mary-Margaret was the rare exception in their entire building. The only other person Mary-Margaret had ever heard of Ethel liking was David.

“Someone had to,” David replied.

“And you didn’t tell me,” Mary-Margaret finished.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he sounded genuine about it. But that was the problem with David. He always sounded genuine about things. He always _was_ genuine about things. The worst offending case had been the time she accused him of being late to archery camp because he was rescuing kittens from trees and he sheepishly pulled an infantile cat from a towel nest in the back of his truck. This cat was now a lazy slob who liked to lay in Mary-Margaret’s windowsill and lick himself in between feeding time and chattering at birds outside.

“In my defence it happened yesterday,” David said.

“You helped my sister move into the apartment across the hall from mine yesterday and you didn’t even knock on the door?” Mary-Margaret asked. “I was home all day.”

“Doing last minute lesson plans and getting excited about the first day of school,” David said, and Mary-Margaret guessed whoever had been in the room with him was gone now. “I didn’t think having your long lost sister turn up on your doorstep at that second was going to do much good for either of you.”

Mary-Margaret exhaled sharply and pursed her lips even though he couldn’t see her.

“How is she?” she asked.

“She’s adjusting,” David said.

“Henry invited me over for dinner tonight,” Mary-Margaret said. “How do you think she’d react?”

“She’s your sister,” David pointed out.

“And you’re her best friend,” she reminded him.

“Well, Emma invited me over for dinner tonight as well, so maybe it would be okay?” David said. Mary-Margaret almost asked if Emma had invited Kathryn, but there was no conceivable situation in which Emma would invite Kathryn Griffith anywhere. It didn’t matter how much Emma might have changed since Mary-Margaret last saw here, there was absolutely no way.

“Henry said five,” Mary-Margaret said.

“Make it five thirty, we’ve got a domestic,” David said. “I have to go.”

“Okay,” Mary-Margaret said, stopping herself before she could say anything else. David stumbled over a few disjointed syllables and then hung up.

She was prevented from lamenting the awful situation she’d put herself in by her students returning from lunch. They were all exhilarated and flush in the face and vibrated with energy. She composed herself as quickly as she could and went back to teaching, which she knew exactly how to do. She lacked the same clarity in the rest of her life.

By the time school was over for the day, she couldn’t stop the nerves from buzzing along her limbs, leaving her fingers twitching like Henry’s. The minute she got to her apartment, well before the school bus would drop Henry off, she busied herself in the kitchen, occasionally shooing her cat away from the counter.

Around four, she heard Henry finally make it home, and an hour or so later, she heard Emma and David walking up the stairs. She wondered if Kathryn knew where David was, or even if Kathryn particularly cared where David was, but pushed the thought out of her head. Usually thinking about Kathryn made her feel like she was decaying from the inside out, but combined with her current preoccupation with her little sister, thinking about Kathryn made her seriously consider throwing up.

She waited a few minutes after she heard them get back before she gathered up her afternoon’s work and crossed the hall. She realised as she knocked that she was covered in flour and still wearing an apron and any pretence she might have wanted to make about having to travel to get to Emma’s apartment was going to disappear the second Emma saw her.

Then the door of number four swung open and she was greeted by long waves of blonde hair and huge, startled green eyes. Emma looked good, healthy. Healthier than the last time Mary-Margaret had seen her, anyway, but the last time she’d seen her little sister, Emma had been three months pregnant and furious and running away. But now she’d lost her baby fat, and her skin practically glowed from good caretaking. She stood tall in a way that reminded her of both Ingrid and Regina, but she doubted Emma would like either comparison.

“Mary-Margaret,” Emma said finally, her knuckles turning white where she was holding the door.

“Emma,” Mary-Margaret replied. She wanted to hug her, but she wasn’t sure Emma would let her.

“Hey Ms Swan,” Henry said, dodging past his mother to pull Mary-Margaret into the apartment. “What are those?”

“Piecrusts,” Mary-Margaret said, setting the saran wrapped rounds of dough on the edge of the counter. She assumed that Emma and Henry didn’t have a troublesome cat who was going to knock them off.

“What are you – what are you doing here?” Emma asked, closing the door and turning to stare at Mary-Margaret. Her eyes darted down the counter at David and Mary-Margaret briefly followed her gaze. David had taken off his jacket and was leaning on the end of the counter on one arm, steadily picking all the M&Ms out of a bowl of trail mix.

“Hey, don’t look at me,” he said when he noticed both Swan women staring at him. As he ducked his head back towards his chocolate pursuit, Mary-Margaret saw his lips curve into a smile. It was the sort of smile he reserved for situations when he was perfectly happy.

“Henry?” Emma asked, rounding on her son.

“Mom, this is my social studies teacher,” Henry said, clinging to Mary-Margaret’s arm. “And parent-teacher interactions are very important, so I invited her to dinner.”

“You invited her to--” Emma started before stopping to take a breath.

“I can leave,” Mary-Margaret said, starting for the door. She only made it a few steps before Emma stopped her.

“You’re welcome to stay,” she said, although she looked nervous.

 _That makes two of us_ , Mary-Margaret thought, and then she was taking off her shoes and staying. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: there are approximately 126 apples in a bushel. It takes approximately one month to smuggle that many out of a standard college dining hall.  
> (also, the quotes at the beginnings of the chapters - Chapter One: The Strength to Go On, Rise Against. Chapter Two: I Wish You Would, Taylor Swift. Chapter Three: It's Complicated, A Day to Remember)


	4. We Need to Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She's singing "baby come home" in a melody of tears while the rhythm of the rain keeps time.

Whatever insistence David made that he wasn’t responsible for Mary-Margaret’s presence, Emma didn’t completely believe him. Not the way he kept looking at her with a secretive smile when he thought no one was looking. Henry might have been the instigator, but Emma was positive David had been involved. And now Mary-Margaret was standing at her kitchen counter, rolling out piecrusts while she instructed Henry on stewing the filling. Emma’s impulse to run screaming from the apartment and Storybrooke was only stifled by how happy Henry looked to have Mary-Margaret there.

A good forty-five minutes after Mary-Margaret arrived, there were four pies in Emma’s oven and Mary-Margaret had progressed from rolling dough to fiddling with the supplies in Emma’s larder to fashion dinner.

“David, are you staying for dinner?” Mary-Margaret asked while she chopped an onion and had Henry peel carrots. Emma was on tomato duty.

“It’s girl’s night,” David said, sitting down at Emma’s counter. He’d long since found all the M&Ms in the trail mix and had moved on to the scraps of pie dough left over. “Kathryn is off with Marian and won’t be home for hours.”

“Who’s Marian?” Emma asked, dropping the diced tomatoes in the saucepan when Mary-Margaret pointed.

“Remember Robin from yesterday morning?” David asked.

“Oh, you met Robin?” Mary-Margaret asked, smiling quickly at Emma. There was just a hint of nervousness in her eyes like she thought Emma was going to throw her out. The visible anxiety made Emma feel incredibly guilty. After all, Mary-Margaret had not been involved in the fight that caused Emma to leave. Of course, that in itself was part of the problem, but they could deal with that later.

“There was a soccer game,” David said. “Robin, Killian, and Will spent Sunday night in the station.”

Mary-Margaret nodded like this made sense.

“Marian is Robin’s separated wife,” David explained. “Their divorce is ugly, and once a week, Marian and Kathryn get together to complain about their husbands.”

Emma could see Kathryn complaining, but she couldn’t fathom what about David she found objectionable. She didn’t want to ask in front of Henry, however, and turned her focus to making dinner. Or, at least, assisting in making dinner since Mary-Margaret had taken over entirely. Emma didn’t really mind since she wasn’t the world’s best cook. When she asked if Mary-Margaret minded cooking, her sister waved her off with an explanation that she never really cooked since cooking for one was depressing and she ended up making a giant vat of soup at the start of every week and eating it until she ran out, unless she decided to splurge by buying pizza.

Emma reflected as the four of them sat down to spaghetti that Mary-Margaret had changed quite a lot since Emma had last seen her. She was quieter, milder, and even better at mediating conflict if Emma had to guess. Although, there was really only one instance in which Mary-Margaret’s conflict mediation had failed. All while they were growing up, every time Emma and Regina got on each other’s nerves, Mary-Margaret was excellent at getting between them and talking them down so neither of them were mad anymore. The only time that skill had failed was the one time it really mattered, and then Mary-Margaret’s attempts to mediate had instead made Emma and Regina even angrier with each other.

“Alright, thank you for dinner,” David said as the last of the pasta disappeared from Henry’s plate. “I should head home.”

“Thanks for coming over,” Emma said, smiling at him as he cleared his plate.

“Of course,” David said.

“You’re not going to stay for pie?” Mary-Margaret asked.

“I can’t,” David said, giving her a sincerely apologetic look. “I have a limited window of opportunity to get home undetected.”

Emma frowned, but didn’t comment on his marriage. He’d talk at some point, she knew that much. She just had to be patient.

“I’ll bring one of them to the station tomorrow,” Emma offered. David smiled at her, kissed her on the forehead, ruffled Henry’s hair, and nodded curtly at Mary-Margaret before taking his leave.

“Kid, you’re on dishes,” Emma said, clearing the last of the plates to the kitchen sink. Henry grumbled but stopped complaining as soon as Emma threatened to withhold pie.

Emma recognised Mary-Margaret’s pie recipe. It was the same kind of pie their mother used to make when they were kids. As she watched Henry attempt to eat an entire pie by himself, Emma realised he’d never tasted Ingrid’s pie and for the first time in twelve years, she almost missed her parents.

It was late when she shooed Henry off to bed, and he was yawning so much he could barely keep his eyes open. Emma took it as a good sign and waited until his teeth were brushed and his bedroom door firmly shut before she grabbed two glasses and a bottle of whiskey and joined Mary-Margaret in the living room. They needed to talk, desperately.

“Thanks,” Mary-Margaret said, taking the glass and tucking her feet under herself. “Oh, and if Henry doesn’t mind, I can take him to school in the mornings.”

“You can?” Emma asked.

“It’s no trouble,” Mary-Margaret said. “He has my class first thing in the morning anyway.”

“Thank you,” Emma said, taking a drink of her whiskey instead of speaking. She scanned Mary-Margaret’s face for some indication of her emotional state and noticed downcast eyes and a sad smile. “Are you okay?”

Mary-Margaret looked up and forced a bright smile. “Sure,” she said. Emma stared at her until the smile disappeared. “No. I haven’t talked to Regina since the funeral which just makes things worse.”

“Were you guys still close?” Emma asked.

“Who? Me and Regina?” Mary-Margaret asked. “I mean, I wouldn’t say we’ve been _close_ since she got divorced, but--”

“Mom and Dad,” Emma corrected, but she filed away the information about Mary-Margaret and Regina’s relationship for later.

“I guess,” Mary-Margaret said. “We still had dinner every other week, but you know, they really wanted grandkids, and I’m not married and Regina--”

“They really wanted grandkids as long as they weren’t coming from me,” Emma corrected.

“Oh, Emma, I’m sorry,” Mary-Margaret said. Emma waved her off.

“They still thought you were perfect though, right?” she asked.

Mary-Margaret’s face fell. “I’m not,” she said. “Really, I’m not, not at all.”

“Really?” Emma asked. She found it very hard to believe. The whole of their childhoods, Mary-Margaret had been the favourite, perfect child who could do no wrong in their parents’ eyes. Regina had compensated for that by overachieving and doing everything as soon as possible. She graduated early, valedictorian. She finished her bachelor’s degree early, with honours. She met the perfect guy, had the perfect wedding. Emma had responded by falling to the exact opposite end of the spectrum.

“I’m thirty-two and single,” Mary-Margaret said.

“That’s not really an imperfection,” Emma pointed out.

“I’ve done things I am not proud of,” Mary-Margaret said, vehemence in her voice that made Emma concerned. “But enough about me. Why’d you come home?”

Emma sighed. “My fiancé turned out to be a jackass,” she said. “And we broke up at the same time I got the funeral notice about Mom and Dad.”

“You were engaged?” Mary-Margaret asked, eyes wide. Emma nodded, but she didn’t really want to talk about Walsh. She would be perfectly content to never talk about Walsh again, honestly. “But you’re back now, for sure?”

“Unless Regina runs me out of town,” Emma said.

“She’s not going to run you out of town,” Mary-Margaret said. “All you’d have to do is introduce her to Henry and she’d welcome you with open arms.”

Emma wanted to protest that she was not going to use her son as a bargaining chip to get back in her sister’s good graces, but there was a ghost of a smile on Mary-Margaret’s face that made her sure she wasn’t actually suggesting it.

“Did she ever get remarried?” Emma asked. She knew about the divorce, even though it happened after she left Storybrooke. But then again, she was pretty sure the entirety of New England knew about Regina Swan’s divorce from Daniel Mills. And she’d run into Daniel once in Boston a few years before, during which time he’d asked after Regina’s wellbeing and Emma had been entirely unable to answer.

“No,” Mary-Margaret said.

“Why didn’t you get married?” Emma asked. Of the three of them, Mary-Margaret had always seemed the most likely to wind up happily married with a gaggle of dark haired children. Regina had been the one who wanted it most, but Mary-Margaret was the most probable.

“Because I’ve been too busy falling in love with people I can’t have,” Mary-Margaret replied.

“I thought you always got everything you wanted,” Emma mumbled.

“You know, it’s late,” Mary-Margaret said. “I have school in the morning. I should really go.”

She finished off her glass of wine and set it in the kitchen before she collected her apron and headed for the door.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said.

“Me too,” Mary-Margaret replied, and then she was gone.

OOooOOooOOooOO

Emma was pleasantly surprised to find David already at work when she turned up – five minutes early. She set a whole pie down on his desk and he smiled at her before fishing a pair of forks out of the break room. He handed one to Emma and unwrapped the pie.

“I didn’t expect you for a little bit,” David said.

“Mary-Margaret took Henry to school,” Emma explained, shaking off the oddity of the statement. It also prompted her to remember Mary-Margaret’s suggestion that she could just introduce Henry to Regina and all would be forgiven. However much it was an abhorrent idea, it was also probably true. After all, Henry had cost her Regina, so who was to say he couldn’t get her back. But no, Emma was not going to stoop to that level.

“That was nice of her,” David said. “Henry seems to like her a lot.”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed. Henry had said as much over breakfast, but Emma didn’t really know anyone who didn’t like Mary-Margaret. Except, of course, people like Kathryn Griffith, and presumably Marian Locksley.

She promised herself as they responded to the morning’s calls – a fender bender over by the library, a non-payment dispute at the docks, a noise complaint in one of the neighbourhoods – that she wasn’t going to pry into David’s marriage. Her curiosity didn’t get the better of her until that afternoon when she finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“So what happened?” she asked. “Because all through high school, you were totally in love with Mary-Margaret and now…”

“I wasn’t in love with her during high school,” David said. Emma found that very hard to believe, but she could tell he wasn’t lying. “She was the only girl I knew who didn’t act like I was her brother the way you and Ruby and Elsa and Belle did.”

“And then you married Kathryn,” Emma said.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” David replied.

“What about now?” Emma asked. “Does it still seem like a good idea?”

David sighed and looked down at his desk. “No,” he said.

“So why are you still together?” Emma asked.

“Because I’m friends with Robin and get to see up close all the horrors that go into divorce,” David replied.

Emma wanted to scold him about the flimsiness of his excuse, but she was interrupted by someone knocking on the doorframe. Killian Jones was leaning against the frame holding out their pilfered mug.

“I even washed it,” he said, setting it back down next to the coffee maker.

“Thanks,” David said.

Killian looked between them with a concerned frown on his face. “Who died?”

“My parents,” Emma said without missing a beat. Killian’s eyes widened and he started to turn red while issuing apologies. Emma let him flounder for a while, the same way he’d done with his hook, and then stood up to refill her coffee cup. “But that was a few weeks ago.”

The flush receded from Killian’s face and he looked from her to David for some kind of explanation.

“We were talking about divorce,” David said.

“Ah,” Killian replied. “Robin?”

“Yeah,” David agreed.

“Right, well I should get back to my ship,” Killian said. “David. Swan.”

He tipped an imaginary hat at them and left the station as quickly as he’d arrived.

“He’s a friend of yours?” Emma asked.

“Yeah,” David said.

“You don’t think it’s kind of weird to be sheriff and be friends with some of the guys you arrest on a frequent basis?” Emma asked.

David shrugged. “Beats being friends with people I can never catch when they do something wrong.”

OOooOOooOOooOO

“Thanks for taking me to school and back home again,” Henry said, squeezing Mary-Margaret’s hand as they walked back to the apartment. Mary-Margaret smiled.

“Of course,” she said. “We live so close it would be silly if I didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Henry agreed. They lapsed into silence for a block or so while they passed the vintage clothing store and Granny’s.

“Do you like hot chocolate?” Mary-Margaret asked.

“Of course,” Henry said. “Why?”

“Do you want to get some?” she asked, nodding at Granny’s. Henry’s face lit up and he pulled her into the diner without a moment’s hesitation. Ruby waved them to a table and brought over menus, only to take them back seconds later when they both ordered hot chocolates.

“So how are you liking Storybrooke?” Mary-Margaret asked.

“It’s okay,” Henry said. He shrugged. “I like having a bigger family than just me and my mom.”

“Sure, because now you’ve got all kinds of family, right? Like me and David and Regina and Mr Gold and--”

“Who’s Mr Gold?” Henry asked. His head tilted sideways in the most innocent of questions and Mary-Margaret wondered if putting one’s foot in one’s mouth ran in the family.

“Oh, he’s, uh…never mind,” she said, kicking herself internally. Of course Emma had never mentioned Mr Gold. Why would she mention the man who’d helped chase her out of town? She wondered if Henry even knew Neal’s name, but decided against asking. If he didn’t, it would just be one more question Henry asked Emma and that Emma inevitably scolded Mary-Margaret for bringing up.

“And David’s not really family, right? He’s just my mom’s best friend, isn’t he?” Henry asked.

“Yeah, of course,” Mary-Margaret said. “Silly me. They’re just so close it’s like he’s part of the family, right?”

“I guess,” Henry said, shrugging again. “Are you guys friends?”

“Me and David?” Mary-Margaret asked. She was saved from answering by Ruby bringing over their hot chocolates and a shaker of cinnamon. “I – we’re friendly, I guess.”

_Friendly? Is that what the kids call it these days?_ the traitorous little voice in her head asked. It sounded remarkably like Regina.

“Why did my mom leave Storybrooke?” Henry asked, addressing his cocoa instead of her.

“What did she tell you?” Mary-Margaret asked.

“She said she didn’t want to raise me around your parents,” Henry replied. “But she never said why. Do you know?”

Mary-Margaret could perfectly recall the day Emma left. She’d been out at Granny’s having dinner, on summer vacation from college, and she’d gone home to find Emma gone while Ingrid and Leonard shouted at each other in the living room. The only sign Emma had really gone was Regina sitting in the corner of Emma’s room with the note that asked them not to look for her.

“I think that’s got to be something your mom tells you,” Mary-Margaret said. “You know?”

Henry sighed. “Yeah, I know,” he said.

“Good,” Mary-Margaret said. “What do you say we head home?”

Henry nodded and led the way back to the apartment building. He said goodbye at their floor and left Mary-Margaret in the hallway alone. She stood there for a moment, uncertain if she should invite herself over and wait for Emma there, but before she could make a decision, Emma walked up the stairs.

“Can I talk to you?” Mary-Margaret asked.

“Sure,” Emma said, although she looked concerned.

Mary-Margaret beckoned her into her apartment and shut the door. “I took Henry out for hot chocolate.”

“He loves that stuff,” Emma replied. “Did you get cinnamon?”

“Of course we got cinnamon,” Mary-Margaret replied. The three sisters might have been incredibly different people, but to a one they shared a love of chocolate, apples, and cinnamon. “But…he didn’t know who Mr Gold was.”

Emma’s eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t show any other reaction. “Why would I have told him about his crazy grandfather?”

“I don’t know,” Mary-Margaret said. “Because he’s the only grandfather Henry has?”

“So?” Emma asked. “We did just fine without our grandparents.”

“I know, Emma, I’m just concerned--” she started.

“You’re concerned?” Emma repeated, raising her eyebrows. “You weren’t concerned twelve years ago. You weren’t concerned when our parents threw me out or Mr Gold offered me five thousand dollars to take my child, or when Regina acted like I ruined her life. You weren’t concerned when I left! You let me go!”

Emma turned to leave like she was confident she’d won the argument.

“We went after you,” Mary-Margaret said. She wasn’t sure her voice was loud enough for Emma to hear her, but Emma stopped.

“You what?” she asked.

“After you left, and you wrote that note telling us not to follow you, well, we followed you,” Mary-Margaret said.

“Who’s we?” Emma asked.

“Me and David and Regina,” Mary-Margaret said. “We made it as far as the interstate, but there was a storm that night and there was a tree down across the road. It took them until morning to clear it and by then, you’d already made it to Boston and disappeared.”

Emma stared at her. “That was still twelve years ago.”

“I know,” Mary-Margaret said. “I just thought you would come back.”

Emma sniffed and straightened her jacket. “Well, I did.”

She gave Mary-Margaret a conflicted look, and then she left, leaving Mary-Margaret alone in her bad memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: Apple pie recipes trace all the way back to Chaucer.


	5. The Jolly Roger

The one nice thing about Storybrooke was the lack of catastrophic disasters. Maybe it was because Emma had spent the past twelve years living in New York City, but Storybrooke was tame by comparison. Although, one problem with the lack of imminent disaster and exciting news was that things stayed relevant a lot longer. It didn’t really become apparent until Saturday morning when Emma and Henry headed down to Granny’s for breakfast.

They slid into a booth and Emma felt the first eyes on her. A quick look showed Leroy, one of the town’s handymen, staring at her. He was sharing a table with their receptionist from the station, Astrid, and as soon as Astrid caught him staring at Emma and Henry, she pulled him away.

“What are we going to do this weekend?” Henry asked.

“That depends,” Emma said, ordering pancakes from Ruby and a cup of coffee. “What do you want to do?”

Henry considered and inhaled the whipped cream from the top of his hot chocolate. “What are my options?”

“Whatever you want,” Emma said, wondering as she said it if those words were about to get her into a situation she really didn’t want any part of.

“How about--”

Henry’s suggestion was cut off by a gasp.

“Emma?” the woman asked. She had brown curls piled on top of her head and bright turquoise eyes, only slightly marred by purple shadows from a lack of sleep. Emma was ready to attribute the lack of rest to the three year old holding her hand and the pram in front of her.

“Belle,” Emma said, standing up. As she and Belle embraced with only the smallest trace of awkwardness, she realised Henry was staring at them. “Uh, Henry, this is one of my friends from high school, Belle.”

“It’s lovely to meet you, Henry,” Belle said, smiling at him. “Are you two just in for breakfast?”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed, counting on all her luck that Mr Gold wasn’t going to be joining his wife. “Is it just the three of you eating?”

“Oh, no,” Belle said. “My father’s joining us in a few minutes, actually. We should go get a table. It was nice to see you again. We should get together at some point, catch up.”

“Sure,” Emma said, managing to smile albeit weakly. “Enjoy your breakfast.”

“You too,” Belle said, beaming at her and Henry before taking her small children off to their own booth.

Emma let out a sigh of relief that Mr Gold wasn’t joining them and realised Henry was watching her with suspicious eyes.

“If you guys were friends then why do you look like that?” Henry asked, slurping more whipped cream off his cocoa.

“What do I look like?” Emma asked.

Henry pulled a face, his eyes wide and his teeth bared.

“I don’t look like that,” Emma said, shaking her head at him. Henry shrugged as if to say he knew better since he could actually see her face. “I don’t get along very well with Belle’s husband.”

“Why not?” Henry asked.

“It’s complicated,” Emma said, grateful that Ruby appeared with their breakfast at that moment. “So what were you going to say we do today?”

“Either…go exploring in the woods, or go exploring the Jolly Roger,” Henry suggested.

“I thought Ruby already took you to see the ship,” Emma said.

“Yeah, but I didn’t get to go on it,” Henry replied. “And what’s the fun of a pirate ship if you can’t go _on_ the pirate ship?”

Emma conceded the point, since she had once stowed away on it as a child. Well, no, she was fourteen not a child, but whatever.

“Alright, which would you rather do?” Emma asked.

Henry considered and decided on the Jolly Roger. Emma agreed and they spent the rest of breakfast discussing Henry’s favourite classes at school. The obvious choice was Mary-Margaret’s social studies class, since they got to read in it, and he didn’t really like science or math very much.

The walk down to the docks was blustery and cold and Emma found herself hoping the ship was going to be closed for the day due to inclement weather. She didn’t have that much luck, she discovered, when they walked up to find the crew swarming the deck.

“Ahoy!” a voice shouted from the main deck of the ship as they approached. Before Emma could try to figure out who it was, Killian Jones swung over the side on a rope and landed on the dock. To Emma’s surprise, he wasn’t dressed in full pirate’s gear. Rather he was in civilian clothes from this, the twenty-first century.

“No excursions today?” Emma asked as Henry ran for the side of the ship, peering eagerly through the portholes.

“Maintenance and repair,” Killian replied. “Is this your son?”

“Yeah,” Emma said.

“Are you the captain?” Henry asked, running back towards them and staring up at Killian with wide eyes.

“Aye, lad,” Killian replied.

“You don’t look like a pirate,” Henry said, the barest hint of disappointment in his voice.

“Well, see, I’ve got to pretend to be one of these normal landlubbers sometimes,” Killian replied. “What about you? Do you have sea legs?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never been on a boat,” Henry said.

“Never been on a--” Killian started, aghast. “That’s a tragedy, that. Care to come aboard?”

“Can I?” Henry asked. His whole face lit up and Killian nodded, pointing him the way of the gangplank. Henry was gone before Emma could say anything.

“Robin!” Killian called, and Robin’s head appeared above the gunwale. “Look after young Mr Swan, would you?”

Robin nodded and disappeared from view.

“Thank you,” Emma said. “For letting him aboard. He’s eleven, so he’s big into pirates.”

“And I don’t look quite enough like Captain Jack Sparrow for his tastes?” Killian guessed, grinning at her. His smile was unsettlingly bright.

“Not quite,” Emma agreed.

“He’ll have to come back when we’re doing one of our pirate cruises,” Killian said. “Next Friday afternoon.”

“Maybe for a Christmas present,” Emma said. Killian shrugged.

“Would you like a tour, Deputy Swan?” he asked.

“I’ve seen it, Captain Jones,” Emma replied.

“Have you?” Killian asked, sounding curious. “When?”

“David and I stowed away when we were in high school,” Emma said. “Your brother made us work in the galley.”

“That’s hardly a tour,” Killian replied, and Emma found herself walking up the gangplank with him. On deck, she found Henry coiling thick ropes with the help of Will Scarlet, a floppy red kit cap on his head and a scabbard hanging from his belt.

“Please tell me that’s not a real knife,” Emma said.

“Mom, look!” Henry exclaimed, pulling out a thankfully wooden dagger from the scabbard. “Isn’t it cool?”

“It’s awesome,” Emma replied. From elsewhere on the deck, a tiny child no older than five wriggled out of his minder’s grasp and ran for the captain’s legs.

“Uncle Killi – Smee--” the boy gasped, hiding behind Killian’s knees while a short, portly man ran towards them.

“Mr Smee,” Killian said, effectively stopping the man in his tracks.

“Seriously?” Emma asked. “You go by Captain Hook and you’ve got a guy named Mr Smee on the ship?”

“Morning, Deputy,” Mr Smee replied, reaching up like he meant to doff a hat to her. He wasn’t wearing one. “Killian, Roland took my hat.”

“Nonsense, Smee,” Killian said. “Clearly, young Mr Swan has your hat, and I’m relatively sure our young Mr Locksley doesn’t know how to steal yet.”

Mr Smee turned to stare at Henry and glared at the red hat on his head.

“Scarlet!” Mr Smee exclaimed, charging at Will and making to grab him. Before he could get there, Will scrambled up the rigging and disappeared onto one of the crossbeams of the mast. Emma had to appreciate his climbing and balance skills, and definitely understood why David had felt compelled to put him in handcuffs inside his cell.

“Henry, give Mr Smee his hat back,” Emma said.

Henry looked disappointed, but handed the contested garment back to its rightful owner.

“Now, I believe I offered you a tour,” Killian said as Mr Smee pulled his hat on with a disturbing amount of enthusiasm.

The Jolly Roger was exactly as Emma remembered it. Granted, she’d only seen the cargo hold, the galley, and the route between the two, but the rest was exactly as she would’ve pictured it. The cabins were furnished alternately with bunks and hammocks, for use depending on whether one was sailing for the sake of piracy or eighteenth century splendour.

“So when it’s one of the high society voyages, you don’t still dress up like a pirate do you?” Emma asked as Killian showed them the galley. He offered Emma a job heating up spiced rum and she rolled her eyes.

“No, then we’re gentlemen sailors from Her Majesty’s navy,” Killian replied.

“What’s in there?” Henry asked, grabbing a doorknob and opening it before Killian could stop him. Emma tried to call him back, but it was too late and Henry was inside the cabin. Tall windows showed a view over the harbour. The desk was scattered with nautical charts and a collection of old maps. A double bed was built into the side of the wall like the berths in the passengers’ quarters, except this bed looked very slept in.

“Do you live here?” Henry asked, staring at Killian in awe.

“I do,” Killian replied. “Say, I know your aunt Mary-Margaret is the one who teaches the archery summer camps, but if you’re interested, I bet Robin would give you a few lessons up on deck right now.”

“Mom can I?” Henry asked, giving her the biggest pleading eyes Emma had ever seen.

“Sure,” she said. “Please be very safe.”

Henry thanked both of them profusely and sprinted out of Killian’s home. Emma let Killian usher her out of the cabin and back into the hallway.

“Sorry about him,” she said. “He gets very excited about things.”

“Don’t apologise for a child’s curiosity,” Killian replied, shutting the door to his cabin and locking it. “I meant to lock it. It’s not really common knowledge that I sleep here, so--”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Emma said. “Is Henry going to be safe with Robin teaching him how to shoot arrows?”

“Absolutely,” Killian replied. “He’s great with his own son, so I imagine he won’t be too terrible with yours.”

Emma cringed, which Killian mistook for concern over the fact Robin was a father.

“He’s a good father,” Killian assured her, looking ready to defend his friend.

“No, it’s not that,” Emma said, following him back to the deck. “It’s just that no one can mention Robin without bringing up how ugly his divorce is, and if there’s a kid involved--”

“Ah,” Killian said. “Yes, it’s…not pretty.”

They reached the deck then and saw Robin teaching Henry how to string a bow, how to hold his arm up correctly, how to hold the arrow. Henry’s grin stretched across his entire face. Emma wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him quite as happy as he was here in Storybrooke.

“Thanks,” she said.

“For what?” Killian asked.

“Your ship was closed for the day but you let Henry see it,” Emma said. “So thank you.”

“It’s no trouble,” Killian said. “Besides, you’re the sheriff. I dread to think what you’d have done to me if I’d told you to bugger off.”

Emma turned to scold him, insist that she would never abuse her position as deputy simply because a pirate had refused her access to his ship, but she realised he was grinning. She shook her head and turned back to watch Henry have the time of his life.

OOooOOooOOooOO

Regina glanced at the clock in dismay while she ran from the bathroom to her closet. She was late, she was so very late. She hadn’t been late for anything since…actually, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been late. She’d been too late to do things – fix her marriage, prevent her wayward little sister from running away, make amends with her parents – but she’d always been punctual.

She smoothed her shirt and tucked it into her skirt, grabbing her boots and pulling them back into the bedroom. There was a convenient bench at the foot of her bed that made putting shoes on easy, and as long as she didn’t stare at the absolute mess that was the bedclothes, she’d be able to get to the office before she was officially late. She stepped into one boot and set her foot up on the bench to zip it, but a hand wrapped around the top of her calf and lips pressed against the top of her leg.

“I’m going to be late,” she said, zipping her boot and trying to pull her leg out of his grasp.

“So be late,” Robin replied. “Better yet, call in sick. Stay here.”

“I’m the mayor,” Regina said, just the faintest hint of admonishment in her tone. “I don’t get to play hooky.”

She tugged her leg out of Robin’s hand and put her other foot on the bench to zip up her second boot. Robin pouted at her with absolutely devastating puppy-dog eyes and Regina had to look away.

“I have to go,” she said, avoiding her boyfriend’s gaze. She also avoided remembering that he was naked beneath the sheets. “Are you going to be here tonight?”

“If it’s alright with you,” Robin replied. “Roland’s gone back to his mum’s, so I’m free.”

“Right,” Regina said, ignoring the stabbing sensation under her ribcage at the mention of Robin’s adorable son and his legally separated, soon to be ex-wife. More importantly, she had to ignore the various threats Marian Locksley had made regarding Robin and Roland. If she’d made up with Ingrid and Leonard before they died, she might have been able to get Leonard to use his influence on the local judges, but now David was sheriff, and even if he’d certainly help Robin, he also didn’t have the same sort of influential power that Regina’s father had possessed.

“I’ll see you tonight,” Robin said, catching her wrist on her way out of the room. He pulled her back for a kiss that stopped being appropriate several milliseconds after it started, and then let go of her.

“Tonight,” Regina agreed, trying to suppress the flush spreading under her collar while she walked out of her room and down the stairs.

She made it to the office with seconds to spare before Town Hall was officially open to the public. Technically, she was under no contractual obligation to have the office open on a Sunday, but she was in the middle of developing a new playground near the school and the budget needed a serious going over with a fine toothed comb, and City Council was useless, so she had resorted to having office hours on Sundays. After all, there were seven days in the week and it didn’t make sense not to use them. It wasn’t like she had hobbies or friends, or even a social life until recently. But that had been true since she was little, starting around the moment Mary-Margaret was born and became the apple of their parents’ eyes. Regina had tried, had done everything she could to stand out and make them proud, but in the process she’d also turned into a chronic workaholic and hadn’t figured out how to recover from that yet. She hadn’t even considered it to be a flaw to overcome until she met Robin. That was around the same time she realised her work schedule probably contributed more to the end of her marriage to Daniel than their differences about children had.

She was halfway through processing the morning’s emails and memos when someone knocked on the office door.

“Come in,” she called without looking up, assuming it was going to be her secretary.

“Mayor Swan?” a child asked.

Regina frowned for a second and then looked up from her computer with a smile on her face. The boy standing in her office was around eleven, holding a pie, and Regina didn’t recognise him at all.

“Yes? How can I help you?” she asked.

“My aunt baked this,” he said, setting the pie down on her desk. “I thought you might like a piece.”

“Well that was very nice of you,” Regina said, wondering what in God’s name had possessed this small stranger to bring her pie. “Can I help you with anything else?”

The kid shrugged and invited himself to one of the chairs in her office. Regina glanced at the last email she’d been working on and then turned her attention to the boy. After all, the Maine Tourism Board could wait until Monday.

“Do your parents know where you are?” Regina asked.

“No,” the kid said. “But I don’t really have a dad.”

“Your mother doesn’t know where you are?” Regina asked. The kid shook his head. “Shouldn’t you be at home?”

“Probably,” he replied. “But she had to go to work so she’s not there anyway.”

“Where does your mother work?” Regina asked, getting ready to call the woman and inform her that her child had taken himself on a walk to Regina’s office apparently with the sole intent of giving her pie.

“She’s the deputy sheriff,” the kid replied.

Regina paused with her finger over the keypad. “Excuse me?”

“My mom,” the kid said. “She’s the new deputy. David hired her the day we got here.”

“Your mother is--” Regina started, scanning the boy’s face for familiar features. The closest she got were green eyes that looked particularly like Emma and Mary-Margaret’s.

“Emma Swan,” the boy replied. “You’re kind of my aunt.”

Regina blinked and then glanced down at the pie on her desk. If Henry’s aunt had baked it, that meant he knew Mary-Margaret. Emma had let Mary-Margaret meet Henry, but she hadn’t even contacted Regina since returning to Storybrooke. Regina inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. Nothing good would come of blowing up in front of her nephew.

“The last time I saw you, your mother was still pregnant with you,” Regina said, joining him in one of the chairs.

“I know,” he replied. “And don’t worry about my mom. She wasn’t going to introduce me to Mary-Margaret either, but she’s my teacher at school.”

“Oh,” Regina said, some of the pressure leaving her chest. She searched Henry’s face again. This child had been the dividing factor between her and Emma. It hadn’t been the years of childish feuds over things like Emma borrowing Regina’s makeup without asking, it had been one single day, one massive fight, and twelve years of silence.

“Do you want to get hot chocolate?” Henry asked, smiling up at her.

Regina smiled softly at him. “I’d like that a lot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: Pirates of the Caribbean is definitely fictional (aside from the obvious reasons) because of Barbossa's apple choices. The green apples the captain is so fond of are Granny Smith apples, which were first grown in 1868. The series takes place sometime in the eighteenth century.


End file.
